


a handful of heather

by lady_peony



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Natsume!Natori
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 13:57:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3770812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_peony/pseuds/lady_peony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Tell me," it says, voice echoing as if it's speaking through mist, "what is outside the window?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	a handful of heather

There's a fruit tree outside. 

Pale golden spheres weigh down its limbs--some kind of pear, Natori guesses. None of the fruits are close enough to reach. 

Natori drops his eyes from the window to his schoolbag. 

A few packets of assignments. Two notebooks. Some loose change from his bread money. The taste of the curry bread he had at lunch drifts into mind and his stomach protests audibly. 

His hand stops at the touch of the familiar corners of the Book. Then he brushes his fingers thoughtfully over the cover, smooth and a little worn. 

He withdraws his hand from the bag when he hears the light creaking of footsteps on wood. 

By the time the footsteps have stopped, his bag is resting in a corner, and Natori is standing, halfway between the wall behind him and the bars in front. 

Better not to get too close, if he can't see what's approaching him. 

"Natori," a woman says, stepping forward, "that is your name, I trust?"

 

_

 

They ask questions. Many of them. 

Eventually, as expected, they ask to see his bag.

This? Natori had said, when he had emptied everything out. He flips to the first page. Raises it to their faces with the resigned air of a student showing their teacher their homework. Look. I finished it, see?

It's a sketchbook, he says. For drawing. 

Someone will worry if I get back late, he says, and the lizard perched beneath his skin slinks around his neck.

Natori bites his tongue as a hand yanks his wrist, none too gently, to move the book closer to the gap between the bars.

"Nothing," the man says, pale grey eyes flickering over the open page.

"Is that so," the woman says at his side, her robes a lighter lilac to his dark violet, and eyes a matching grey. 

She has a voice like woodsmoke, sparks crackling just at the edge of hearing, then trailing off faintly at the end. "The second plan then, brother. Payment will be demanded." 

The brother nods, mouth grim, and drops his grip from Natori's wrist. "It will be met."

 

_

 

"You. You're a human, are you not?"

Natori sits up, swivels his head to the sound on his left and scrambles to his feet, ready to fight. 

An ayakashi. 

Human, he thinks, but no. Mostly human, except for the paper mask covering half its face, the ox-like legs emerging from its sleeves, ending in hooves. The other half of its body is melded with the wall. 

"Tell me," it says, voice echoing as if it's speaking through mist, "what is outside the window?"

"Can you not look yourself?" Natori says, and yes, there's a faint wash of guilt as the yokai tilts its head. But he wasn't acting short-tempered without reason. He was tired, trapped in who-knows-where, without any hope of help. After the brother and sister had left, Natori had tried to undo the lock on the door by touch and had ended up with a sore wrist and scraped fingers for his trouble.

"There's a tree," he says, after a moment, tipping his head up to better see the window. "It's a pear tree, I think."

A breeze sweeps through his hair, sweetened with a whisper of sun-warmed fruit.The window is too high to reach, was only near enough to tantalize with a glimpse of the outside. 

"If I was let out," Natori says, turns around to slap a hand against the bars, the blow half-hearted, "I could tell you more." 

"Young one," the yokai says, mournful, the words echoing like a stone dropped down a well. "I cannot move very far myself." The wall ripples, and it is still stuck, Natori realizes, on the same wall. "I cannot help. I am sorry for it." The yokai's voice even sounds close to apologetic.

The yokai could be lying. We lie all the time, a familiar voice threads through his mind, and _they_ always have had more time to practice. 

Well. It's not as if he has a lack of time to listen.

"Why are you trapped?" Natori says.

 

_

 

The girl came first. The girl, the eldest. 

Then the boy. Brother and sister.

Both were happy, in the family house, with their mother and father. 

And they continued as they would, until their parents left on a shared job, promising to bring them back taiyaki, one for each, if the children were good. 

The house was a little emptier, after.

The brother and sister continued living, resilient as children are.

Not as happy as before of course, but not alone. They had their aunts and grandparents, who brought them up well. And their playmates, always found near the house, the guardians and helpers unseen by most eyes. 

"She loved pears," the yokai said, "and would pick far too many to finish on her own. The brother would always take the extra portion, give one or two to me and the others."

"The others?" Natori said, and watched the hooves tuck themselves into their sleeves, his question left unanswered. 

And they grew, learned more about their kin and their work. They had the same gift as their parents before, and their grandparents. Soon, their grandparents followed the way of their father and mother, but the two were stronger at the time and grown. 

Happy in the house still, until she was poisoned. 

A hard battle, it was told, and her brother had not been with her.

He set out to find the cure, from the one who had defeated her. Came back, empty-handed, and staggering with the same sickness. 

It took all of the household's healing skill to nurse them back to health.

After the two woke, their sight had abandoned them both.

We did not leave. 

But the spells on the house weakened, like a tree rotting from too much water. And they turned wild. 

 

_

 

"And since then," the yokai finishes, "I have not moved from this house. This wall."

Natori finds his hand skittering over the surface of his bag. If he did call one, two if the first one failed, would they end up like this? An uneasy thought. 

His eyes slid over to the wall, and looking closer now, he could _see_ it. 

Hypnotic rippling under the wood, like ink spilled in clear water. If he got out, Natori needed to remember those shapes to look up in the books Takuma-san kept in storage. 

"Do you have a name?" Natori asks, abrupt. "If you can help, I need to know how to address you." Or I need to know how to stop you. Whatever the yokai may have said, its loyalties were undoubtedly to the house and its owners. 

"Ah," the yokai says. The paper over its face sways slightly. "Omoi. Yes. That was what I was called." He could write it down, Natori thinks for a half-second, before he flicks the thought away. There was no need of that just yet. 

Omoi picked up his head, like a bird sensing the wind, slowly turned his chin to the direction of his wall. "They've returned."

Natori could feel it. Something shifting beyond the bars, the buzzing of static electricity before flesh brushed metal. 

"Boy," the brother spoke. 

The door was open. 

The knife though, was what Natori fixed his eyes on, blade shining and strange in the spread of summer light.

"We will be in your debt," the sister said, an empty earthen jar in her right hand, its lid carried in her left. 

Debt. 

Payment, they had said. _What kind?_

Natori flattens himself against the wall, picking up his schoolbag behind his back with one hand. 

He sees Omoi's mouth move from the corner of his eye, can't help turning his head towards him.

"Is there something there?" the one holding the knife says. "You _can_ see. Good. A few drops will be enough."

Omoi's mouth moves again, and the sister shakes her head as if startled from sleep.

"Did you speak my name?" she says, and her brother turns, the knife lowering to his side.

Natori pushes off the wall, throws his whole weight towards the door. 

There's a crash of pottery on stone, a shout. 

Something slices through the strap of his bag and Natori nearly stumbles before his hand reels his bag upwards into his arms. He keeps running. 

 

_

 

Feet pushing off stairs, passing almost three at a time. 

Left turn. 

A hallway. No time to decide. 

There. Light. 

Without knowing where the main entrance was, the window looked like his best option.

His fingers land on smooth wood. Tenses against the edge to slide it open.

Natori's fingers are left reaching for air instead of the window frame and his bag tumbles to the floor.

The sister's grip on his shoulder is strong. 

"We'll let you go," she says, smile serene, "after. Only a little blood is needed."

Natori twists under her hand. 

A sudden warning pressure over the flesh, just above the bend of his elbow. The knife.

Natori stops. His right side aches and his calves burn from running. The Book is too far to be reached. 

Words are all he has left. 

"You miss them," he says. "Omoi. The others in the house. Is that why?"

A sharp inhale. He's aware of a pricking sensation in his shoulder, fingernails digging in. "Where did you come by that name?" she says. 

"They haven't forgotten you. You, your brother both," he says. This may be cruel. He's not sure he cares as much as he would like to. 

A gust of wind slips into the room. Or rather, barrels into the room.

The window is still closed.

Natori watches the knife fall to the ground, painted red in the sunset light. He turns his head and his glance lands on Hiiragi, hovering over the knife on the floor, sword drawn. 

The woman looks at her hand, eyes widening, and whips around to face Natori, her hand releasing his shoulder to reach towards the pocket of her robe.

Natori stumbles back, towards Hiiragi's direction. Automatically readies himself to run when he hears the shaking sound of wood behind him. 

A shadow-creature oozes into the doorway. No, Natori realizes, it's taller than the door, blocking it entirely. 

And carrying a violet-clothed figure in an immovable fist. 

"So Hiiragi beat me," Matoba Seiji says, slipping somehow in front of the shadow into Natori's view. He sounds inexplicably disappointed. The shadow dissolves behind him and the body of the unconscious brother thumps to the floor. 

 

_

 

Hiiragi disappears after they find the entrance of the house. But she doesn't leave before turning to Natori, issues a flat warning to stop wandering around the woods without a guard or even a companion, if he absolutely must. 

If this was her version of anger, Natori supposes it was well deserved. 

"Thank you," Natori said, once she stops. "For the help." She stared--or Natori thinks she was staring from behind the mask--and nodded stiffly before slipping into the shadows of the trees. 

He would see her again, he knows. 

"It's the second."

"What?" Natori says. Fingers press into his palm and Natori blinks when he realizes that Matoba is holding his hand. 

"Did you hit your head, Shuuichi-san?" Matoba says. "It's the second time I've come to your aid. Shouldn't some thanks be my due?"

"What for?" Natori says. "The first doesn't count. If I hadn't tripped into you, any other temple would have worked as sanctuary."

"And yet," Matoba says in a familiar self-satisfied tone, "I was the one who showed you through the woods."

Natori opens his mouth to argue, his hand curling tighter with irritation. His fingers sweep over a smooth crisscross of cloth where he expects flesh. "Why do you have bandages?" he demands, flicks his gaze down to Matoba's hand.

Matoba blinks this time, and turns his head to meet Natori's stare. "An unfortunate papercut," he says. 

Natori's mouth opens again, incredulous and--

"That was a dangerous situation," another voice comments before Natori can speak. 

Matoba halts mid-step, and Natori stops with him.

"Tanuma-san?" Natori says, and receives an acknowledging smile from the dark-haired man. 

"Natsume-san is here too," Tanuma says, and he is, at Tanuma's side as he usually is, his infamous cat hanging onto the crook of his left arm. 

"Tanuma heard about the situation," Natsume says, gaze worriedly flickering between the two of them. His usual crumpled suit was more rumpled then usual, with one sleeve missing a button and his tie knotted backwards. "The trains were quick but not...Are you two unharmed?" 

Side by side, their serious expressions are a far distance from the smiling faces Natori has seen plastered over shop windows, on the magazine covers his fellow classmates giggled over in class. Tanuma Kaname and Natsume Takashi, the twin actor darlings of the moment. 

"If you're the head of the clan, Tanuma-san," Matoba says, politeness clinging to every syllable, "should you not exert better control over your exorcists in the area?"

Actors, Natori corrects in his mind, and exorcists both. Leaders in their own way, of groups which dealt with people and the yokai that mingled with them. 

Natsume's cat has narrowed its eyes, and is looking at Matoba contemplatively. 

Natsume's shoulders are tensed. "That isn't fair to Tanuma," he says, soft. 

Matoba's reply is equally soft, no louder than the flap of a hawk's wing in flight. It rings all the same. "They had him in a _cell_."

"Natsume," Tanuma murmurs, one hand pulling at the cuff of Natsume's sleeve, then dropping over Natsume's wrist. "He's right." Tanuma lifts his head to look directly at them, face grave. "They will be dealt with, according to our clan," he says. 

"They will be," Natsume says, eyes glinting. They remind Natori of ancient bells, still burning gold one generation after the next. 

"If it is as you say," Matoba says, dips his head a fraction. "I apologize for my rudeness."

Natori watches Natsume's face slide into a gentler expression as he speaks again. "I am glad you are safe. The both of you." He reaches out one hand to pat Natori's shoulder. Natori imagines the pressure of Matoba's hand around his increases fractionally.

"I am all right," Natori says. "But in the house...there are yokai still there. I think they want to leave. And they can't." Omoi. Omoi and the others, even if Omoi had been the only one Natori had seen. 

"Can this go faster?" the cat in Natsume's arm mutters. "We have to take care of such troublesome things before dinner!"

Ah, that's right. The cat. Natsume's cat had a name, Natori was sure, if he could remember it.

"Thank you for telling us, Natori," Tanuma says, his smile pleased. He seems to be ignoring Natsume furiously whispering at the cat, their expressions equally irate. "We'll make sure to look for them." 

"If that is all," Matoba says, "you must excuse us." 

Natori turns a little as they walk away to see two figures wave goodbye at him once, before continuing on the path opposite of theirs towards the house in the distance. 

Their own walk continues in silence, before Natori notices their direction. "My house is on a different way," he says.

Matoba lets go of his hand. "The temple is closer." 

"I--," Natori begins. An unexpected growl cuts off the rest of his sentence.

A complicated expression slips over Matoba's face before he lifts up a palm that doesn't entirely muffle his laugh. 

"Dinner?" Matoba says after, half-turning his head to glance at Natori's scowling face. 

He _is_ hungry, honestly speaking. Natori nods, makes a mental note to call Takuma-san once they arrive. Takuma-san would worry, even if he didn't say so. 

The sky slinks from pink to a glazed violet, then deep cobalt as they go on. Tumbling masses of clouds block out the light from the stars and moon both, leaving little light to see by. 

Yet, somehow, the two manage to find their way.

**Author's Note:**

> *This is a role-swap canon au-verse, thanks to baduglyprose for the [initial au post](http://cyanmnemosyne.tumblr.com/post/115995236288/im-sure-this-has-been-done-before-but%20that%20started) which went off onto a tag spiral
> 
> *Natsume!Natori is grumpier and confused on what he wants to do with the Book of Friends that he inherited from his grandmother. Basically was a sad angry orphan except for the point where he was adopted by Takuma-san.
> 
> *Matoba as Tanuma but with a more _questionable_ character and a stronger power level, descended from a line of priests. Also lives with Nanase-san, who has worked with the temple ever since Matoba was young. Natori sort of ran into him while running away from another yokai and Matoba helped him seal it away. 
> 
> *Tanuma Kaname is the head of the Tanuma clan, a famous clan of priests who somehow made a career change as exorcists?? probably due to a politically advantageous marriage with someone of an exorcist background. His strong point is in his sensitivity and yokai detection ability, not so strong on the offensive moves against them. Absurdly married to Natsume, even took up acting to sort of spend more time with him and then found that he was good at it??? Usually chosen to star in historical dramas/stoic mysterious character types. 
> 
> *Natsume Takashi grew up with the Fujiwaras after his grandmother raised him. Came from an exorcist family that had fewer and fewer children with the sight. Is famous as being a sweetheart star actor, is also absurdly married to Tanuma. 
> 
> *The pears mentioned at the beginning are [nashi pears](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrus_pyrifolia) , not the green pears that pop up in paintings with a fruit bowl aesthetic


End file.
